TALA Strategy: Frayer Model
Presented By: Alma Sanchez
TLI Teacher Specialist
Outcomes
• Learn how to choose words for use of the Frayer
model
• Learn how to plan for vocabulary instruction
• Understand the importance of quick and accurate
word recognition
• Learn how to make definitions useful to students
• Learn the routine in teaching new vocabulary
words to students.
• Learn how to modify frayer model for common
words
How Many Words Should Be Taught?
• Students need to learn about 3,000-4,000 words
per year to maintain average vocabulary growth
(Baumann & Kame’enui, 2004)
• Many students with low vocabularies need to
learn more words to make progress toward
catching up with their peers.
• Students must learn through direct instruction
and incidentally through exposure and wide
reading
Planning for Vocabulary
• When deciding whether to use the expanded
instructional routine, consider whether the
word is:
– Critically important for comprehension
– Frequently encountered
– A multiple-meaning word defined differently in
other contexts
The Importance of Quick and Accurate
Word Recognition
• Fluent reading (quick, smooth, accurate reading)
depends on recognizing many words immediately “at
sight” and efficiently identifying unfamiliar words.
(Torgesen et al., 2003)
• Poorly developed word recognition skills, and a
resulting lack of reading fluency, are among the
greatest sources of reading challenges.
(Rasinski & Padak, 1998; Torgesen et al., 2003)
• Concentrating on identifying words reduces the amount of
concentration that can be devoted to comprehension.
(National Institute of Child Health and Human
Development, 2000; Samuels, 2002)
Making Definitions Useful to Students
• Looking up words in the dictionary is not effective for
helping students learn new words.
(Scott & Nagy, 1997)
• Teaching students only formal definitions does not
significantly or reliably improve comprehension.
(Baumann & Kame’enui, 1991; Stahl & Fairbanks,
1986)
• It is more useful to explain the vocabulary words in
simplified, natural English terms before a reading…
(Beck, McKeown, & Kucan, 2002)
• …and to use formal dictionary definitions after the word
has been encountered in text.
(Nist & Olejnik, 1995)
Routine in Teaching New Vocabulary
Words to Students
1. Select the words to teach
– Select words for your unit that will be taught
2. Pronouncing and defining the words
– Pronounce the word for the student(s) and have
them repeat the pronunciation with you
– Provide a student friendly definition of the word
and check for understanding (some words may
be cognates)
3. Generating examples and nonexamples
Making Examples and Nonexamples
Useful
•
•
•
•
Closely related to topic and characteristics
Synonyms and antonyms
Concrete
Personally or culturally relevant
Frayer Model: Language Arts
Definition
A writer’s account or memories of true
events in his or her life
Characteristics
•Does not always tell about a person’s entire
life
•Includes one or more lifechanging events
•Usually told in the 1st person
•Nonficiton
•A type of autobiography
Memoir
Examples
Nonexamples
•A short story about the day I broke my
•A short story about turning into a
arm
superhero
•A book the President of the United States •A book an author writes about how well
writes about how he dealt with a national the President handled a national crisis
crisis
•A fictional diary of a teenager who is
•A diary kept by a child living in a war
having trouble at school
zone
Frayer Model: Math
Definition
Characteristics
A closed, plane figure made up of three
or more line segments
Examples
•Square
•Pentagon
•Parallelogram
•Quadrilateral
•Rhombus
•Irregular nonagon
•Closed
•Made of line segments
•Three or more sides
•Two-dimensional
polygon
•Ray
•Oval
•Pyramid
•Cylinder
•Disk
Nonexamples
Frayer Model: Science
Definition
A characteristic of matter that can be
seen, felt, heard, smelled, or tasted
Examples
•Color
•Texture
•State (solid, liquid, gas)
•Boiling point
•Odor
Characteristics
•Can be measured
•Describes an object
•Information that can be observed without
changing the matter into something else
Physical
property
Nonexamples
•The way a material behaves in a chemical
reaction
•Chemical properties
•Can be observed only when one
substance changes into a different
substance
•flammability
Frayer Model: Social Studies
Definition
People moving from one place, region, or
country to another
Characteristics
•Involves a major change (long distance or large
group)
•Could be forced by natural disaster, economy,
warfare
•Could be a choice because someone wants a
different climate, job, or school
•Permanent or semi-permanent not temporary
Human
migration
Examples
Nonexamples
•Move from Dar el Salam in Tanzania to
•People staying in one place all their lives
Zanzibir
•Geese flying form Canada to Mexico
•People many years ago walking/floating
•Someone from El paso, Texas, going
across the Bering Strait from Russia to
Juarez, Mexico, for the day
North America
•Driving from a home in the suburbs to a
•People moving from rural areas in the
job in the city
southern United States to cities in the
North
Frayer Model: Modified for Special
Populations
Definition
Sentence
•The animal walked across the field.
Any living things that are not a plant or a
human
Synonym/Antonym
Pig/cerdo
Plant/planta
Animals/animales
Picture
Useful Web Sites
• Student –friendly definitions
http://www.oup.com/elt/catalogue/teachersites/oald7/?cc=global
• Idioms
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/results.asp?dict=A
• Math terms
http://www.mathwords.com/